Leeds City Council (19 006 104)

Category : Environment and regulation > Refuse and recycling

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 06 Mar 2020

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: The Council failed to collect garden waste on several occasions in 2018 and 2019. This caused injustice not only from the missed collections, but the time and trouble Miss X went to in reporting the missed collections and making a formal complaint. The Council has apologised to Miss X and is already making service improvements. It will also pay Miss X £150 for the missed collections and her time and trouble.

The complaint

  1. Miss X complains the Council keeps failing to collect her garden waste bin.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered information from Miss X and the Council.
  2. Miss X and the Council had the opportunity to comment on a draft version of my decision before I made a final decision.

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What I found

What happened

  1. The Council collects garden waste fortnightly from March to November.
  2. Miss X told the Council it had missed the whole street collection once in June 2018, twice in September 2018, once in April 2019 and once in September 2019.
  3. A neighbour reported a full street miss on a different occasion in June 2018 and twice in August 2018.
  4. On each occasion the Council says it collected the bin on the next scheduled collection day. The Council says in April 2019 it could not collect because parked vehicles blocked access to the road. It has provided a photograph of this.
  5. The Council says the crew that collects from the street collects city wide, whereas other crews have specific areas. It says this makes monitoring difficult, but a Team Leader has done this. It says because of the complaints it has made improvements including a permanent driver and a wagon with a tracking device. It says it is carrying out a service review and it will introduce further improvements to the garden waste service in March 2020. It says if problems continue after March 2020 it will consider other options.
  6. The Council says it recognises and understands it has issues with its garden waste collection. It apologises to Miss X for the missed collections

Analysis

  1. The Council accepts it is at fault for the missed collections. It is trying to address the problems. Its actions appear to be working as the complaints of missed collections reduced in 2019.
  2. We are pleased by the Council’s approach and apology to Miss X. However, the Council failed to provide a reasonable service to her and put her to the time and trouble of reporting the problems and making a complaint. To put this right, I recommended the Council pays her for the missed collections and her time and trouble.

Agreed action

  1. To put matters right for Miss X the Council has agreed that within a month of my final decision it will pay £150 to Miss X.

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Final decision

  1. The Council is at fault and has caused injustice to Miss X. The Council has agreed to provide a remedy for this. I have completed my investigation and closed the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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